Social Animal

Hazel the Catahoula by Julia Austine for Meat of the Message

I like to follow people on Social Media with whom I share common interests: food, Social Media itself, photography, music, local events, food, Public Relations, food, parenting, etc. I used to unfollow people who would constantly post images of something I was not interested in: their pets.

This changed, a bit, with the new addition to our family, Hazel the Catahoula puppy. When we decided we were looking for a pup, I started a board on Pinterest called: Puppy Love with images of dogs that made me go, “Awwww”. There were lots of Catahoulas and Corgis, and this new interest caused some curiosity and raised some suspicions among my close friends. Of course, once we got our Catahoula home, I instantly started sharing many adorable photos of our sweet puppy on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Realizing, that I was turning into someone that I would unfollow in a heartbeat, I vowed to vary my sharings and never do two puppy posts in a row.

Surprisingly, to me, I had many requests for more dog pictures and constant updates of what she was up to. Especially on Instagram, I had questions and comments from dog-focused posters. Catahoulas are not very commonly seen in Canada, they are a Southern hunting dog and the State Dog of Louisiana. So, we get stopped a lot on walks and people often think she is an Australian Blue Heeler, due to her colouring.

Through these new interactions, I even made a connection through Instagram with another Catahoula owner who adopted one of Hazel’s relatives! This was pretty exciting to me and now I actually look forward to other people’s pet posting.

Being a dog owner opened me up to a new interest group and automatically made me a member.

Relevant Articles:

Mystic the Catahoula (Dog Gone Funn)

Asher the Catahoula Leopard Dog (Clarke Studio Pet Photography)

Joey Lehrman and Keeping it Local (Joey Lehrman)

Do you like or dislike lots of personal pet photos on your Social feeds?

Fave Photos from 2013

Going through my monthly photo streams, these are the images that stayed with me throughout the year. A year of challenges and changes that leaves me grateful for all that I have and all that I have become.

Wonder what 2014 will hold…

Balcony View

Roger Ebert, film lover, passed away after a prolonged battle with cancer. This news was shared all over the internet with people remembering his impact on their lives. I started watching Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert’s first show, Sneak Previews, on PBS and over the years I loved their dialogue and interaction even more than hearing the final thumbs up or thumbs down verdicts. A while ago I watched a TED video of Roger Ebert about losing the use of his voice and how he had a computerized voice created from the years of footage of his TV shows. His humour and positive attitude touched me deeply.

He had, as most of us do, taken for granted the ability to speak and easily communicate verbally with others. He remained active and prolific up to the very end and talked about all the projects that he was working on and looking forward to on his blog. It truly makes me appreciate the platforms that social networks provide us to speak our minds, share those thoughts and have people around the world respond to them.

Appreciate your voice and all the forms it takes.

Gene Siskel’s Daughter Pays Tribute To Roger Ebert (celebuzz.com)
The Balcony Is Closed: Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert and My Love Affair with Them and the Movies (wtpdiaries.wordpress.com)
A Fond Farewell To The Great Roger Ebert (reelgood.co.uk)
R.I.P Roger Ebert; Legendary Film Critic, Historian, and Author Passes Away at Age 70 (collider.com)
Film critic Roger Ebert’s death mourned, life celebrated (utsandiego.com)

Stay Social

In order to get the most out of your online social networks and social media, just remember that the word social always comes first.Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are communities built on the principles of give and take, and if you expect people to take the time to view your content you need to do them the courtesy of giving them your attention as well. This is not necessarily a one to one ratio or an exactly even exchange, more of a way of operating. If you just blast your info and message out without considering or connecting with your audience, they will quickly tune out. The great thing about social media compared to traditional media is the ability to have immediate interaction with your audience, don’t let that go to waste!

If you want comments, likes and retweets, you need to be dishing them out as well. Plus, if you ARE getting all these wonderful things make sure you are showing your appreciation. Sometimes I wait until Friday to thank a week’s worth of re-tweeters or new followers on Twitter with a Follow Friday tweet or two. Sending a thank you in a direct message may seem more personal, but getting a public shout out is usually considered more valuable.

Commenting on blogs that share a similar subject is a great way to bring traffic to your own blog and broaden your readership. Encourage more people to comment on your posts by replying to comments, even a quick “Thanks for the comment” will usually do. You may also have noticed the links to other related articles at the bottom of my posts, It’s simple to add these in WordPress, as recommendations are provided in a handy little box in the Edit Post screen. I’ve been introduced to some fantastic articles and incredible bloggers through this one little thing and I always appreciate (and comment) when other bloggers link back to one of my posts.

To increase viewership, when I post a new image on Instagram, I add several relevant hashtags so people who don’t follow me can find my pictures and maybe click the “follow” button. Then I will click on one of two of the hashtags in my comment, which goes to a search for other photos with that hashtag, and “like” or comment on the ones I admire. This generates many more likes and comments for my pics, it also causes more spammy comments, but those are easy to clean up.

It’s all about engagement and the best way to make people care about your message is to show that you’re listening to what they have to say as well.

How do you show appreciation to your followers and likers?

5 Easy Ways You Can Network on Twitter (theresesquared.com)
Reblogged Vs. Retweet: A Case for the Former (zemanta.com)
Social Media Marketing and Why You’re Probably Doing it Wrong [VIDEO] (socialmediatoday.com)

Facebook Feed Filler

My mother would always tell us not to fill up on bread at the dinner table. She knew that the other dishes had more nutrients and therefore more value for our growing bodies. Just as we have only so much appetite for food, people have a limited appetite for information. While reading about how a share on Facebook is 6 times more valuable than a share on Twitter, it made me think about all those Facebook pages that are filling our feeds with junk.

I recently “liked” a local photography business, but then “unliked” them not long after as they were posting multiple photos each day and I was getting tired of seeing pictures of people I didn’t know. Those images were taking up a lot of valuable visual real estate in my newsfeed and it became annoying. I actually went to their studio to have a video transfer done last week, but I didn’t find out from Facebook that they offered this service. Nope, I read it in a paper brochure in a neighbouring business. They obviously put time and effort into their Facebook presence, but it definitely could be paying off more. All the photos they share are posted to their timeline, when it would be much more effective to create albums (Weddings, Children, Portraits, etc) for prospective clients to browse. While they sometimes shared information about specials and services, the majority of the images had no text at all.

Frostings Cupcakes — Frosting’s Cupcakes

Another business that I “like” on Facebook (and that I’ve blogged about before), Frosting Cupcakery, shares their list of daily flavours, but since it is just text it doesn’t fill up the newsfeed and is easy to ignore if I’m not in the mood for cupcakes (yeah, right). They also share photos on their timeline as well,but the photos are relevant and timely (graduation cakes, pink cupcakes for Pink Shirt Day, etc) and include a description and often a call to action (eat cupcakes).

People want interaction, engagement and information from businesses that they follow on Facebook. Make sure you are always giving value to your followers with every post and keep it short and sweet (like a cupcake).

Have you ever “unliked” a business page for filling up your newsfeed?

Facebook Marketing is a Team Sport (findyourtippingpoint.com)
Facebook: The Collective Unconscious (with ads) (thespiritedquill.wordpress.com)
How Facebook Is Using You to Annoy Your Friends (and How to Stop It) (lifehacker.com)

Instagram Comment Cleanup

@zenijaesmits on Instagram — Instagram post that had a spam comment

Usually, having a follower post a comment about your photo on Instagram is a desirable thing. But like everywhere else on the internet, there are bots, spammers and just your everyday jerks roaming around the Instagram network. So, what to do when an unwanted comment pops up beneath your latest and/or greatest image that you have decided to share with the world? It’s a simple fix, but maybe not so obvious to the casual user.

My friend and social media protegé, Zenija (who inspired this Meat of the Message post as well), had shared an image of her tongue firmly in cheek Valentine’s cards from her aptly named Say It With Sarcasm store on Etsy. It didn’t take long for comment to appear that was salacious as well as spammy. She didn’t know how to delete it and hadn’t invested the time to figure out how it could be done.

It’s a simple fix, but not immediately obvious, so I though I’d share a quick little tutorial using my own Instagram image. My photo didn’t get spammed but a user who had commented on my image had deleted his profile on Instagram, which resulted in all his comments disappearing as well. This made my reply seem out-of-place and I wanted to tidy it up.

Selecting Instagram comment for deletion

Tutorial for Deleting an Instagram Comment:

Select the image that has the unwanted comment and then tap on the “Comment” button below (with the little speech bubble), as if you were going to add another comment. Once you are in the “COMMENTS” screen as shown above, swipe your finger from left to right on top of the comment you wish to delete and a little garbage can and a reply arrow will appear. Tap the garbage can and two options will show up: “Delete” and “Cancel”. If you want to go through with it, tap “Delete” and the comment will disappear, if you have grown attached to the comment and want to keep it, just hit “Cancel” and all will stay the same.

It’s a sweet little way to sweep away unwanted comments, whether it’s a comment you made on another user’s photo or one that was posted under your picture. So, now you can clean up your Instagram comments as easily as you turf the half eaten chocolates with dubious fillings after Valentines Day!

What tips or tricks have you discovered or find yourself still trying to figure out for Instagram?

Soda Social (juliaaustine.com)
Valentine’s Day: Long-distance couple falls in love over Instagram (thestar.com)
Madonna Shares A Valentine’s Day Card On Instagram (pinkisthenewblog.com)
Facebook Just Bought Instagram [NEWS] (epicagear.com)
Instagram makes image feeds available beyond mobile (siliconrepublic.com)

Social Picture Progression

My last post was about Four Fab Photo Apps that I’ve been using on my iPhone 4S as well as my iPad. I find that I’m regularly using more than one app when editing and sharing photos, so I thought it would be interesting to share the journey of a photo from the lens to the internet.

I have a food blog at www.kitchenettefinds.com and food oriented Twitter account @kitchenettefind where I share recipes, reviews and food photos. I was about to sit down to enjoy my lunch one day and I was taken by the mix of colours in my cilantro slaw with guacamole dressing. There was nobody around to share the beauty of the healthy rainbow I had created in my bowl, so I thought I’d share it with the world.

1. iPhone 4S

Having my phone handy, as always, I snapped a pic of the bowl near the edge of the table with the fork adding a dash of asymmetry to add interest. But, it’s still just an image of a bowl of stuff, not share worthy… yet.

2. PicFX

The colours needed some punch, so I cropped and filtered the image in PicFX. The app now allows the option of keeping the original aspect ratio (rectangle instead of square).

3.Bokehful

To add some flair to the photo, I used Bokehful to emphasize the gorgeous colours in the salad with a cascade of stars. Now it’s starting to look like an image fit for the internet!

4. Instagram

Instagram is my mobile location-based image sharing network of choice, so I gave the image a final filter adjustment to add drama and a frame to finish it off. Then I shared it to my social networks on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

So that’s the story of how I shared my lunch with the world. I didn’t just do it to make people hungry, I hope that it encouraged at least one person to make a healthier food choice or try a new app.

Now, the sequel would be about how I used the PicFrame app to make the photo at the beginning of the post and how I’m sharing this tale with you through WordPress.

Would you rather that people share unedited photos, fancified or photos or just kept their lunches to themselves?

The Big Picture (allankleiman.com)
Digital artist creates Instagram for Windows Phone concept (neowin.net)

Four Fab Photo Apps

Science World in Vancouver edited with Picfx — Spacey Science World edited with Picfx

Photography has been a passion of mine for a long time. I’ve played around in a dark room, manipulated Polaroid emulsion transfers and I bought a digital camera when 4 mega pixels was a big deal. One thing I was not quick to embrace was cell phones with cameras. I saw it as a useful tool to capture data, but I was not open to the artistic merit angle. I usually carried a camera with me, so I never relied on capturing essential images with a phone. Well, that all changed when I switched from a Blackberry to the iPhone4S last year. It finally dawned on me that it was not the technical specs that was the key feature of using the camera on smartphones (though finally it was on par with point-and-shoots) it was the share-ability of the images captured. Rather than waiting to download scores of images to my laptop (usually late at night) and then finally getting around to putting them up on Facebook, I could instantly share what I was seeing with friends, family and all my social networks. Over the last year I’ve gotten more creative with the images I share and here are the top four iPhone apps that I have used the most:

Instagram

I started using Instagram mostly as a way to share images with Facebook, Flickr and Twitter and I played around with the filters, frames and blurs. Lately, I’ve been more interested in Instagram as a social network as there are some amazingly talented and creative people who share their creations through Instagram. I’ve started using more hashtags on my photos under @juliaaustine and I’ve seen the number of likes and comments go up as well (also the amount of spam, but I figured out how to delete those comments).

Picfx

After using Instagram for a while, I noticed that people’s images were going beyond the manipulations offered there and so I started looking for ways to add more effects to create more dramatic images. I downloaded Picfx (paying a whopping $1.99) and haven’t looked back. With over 100 effects and the ability to layer effects and control the intensity, there are a mind-boggling amount of combinations that can be created.

Bokehful

One of my favourite effects from Picfx was the different bokeh light layers. The only problem was that it was static, you could adjust the intensity but not the placement. Enter Bokehful. For 99 cents, I could not only control the intensity and placement, there were colour palettes and shapes literally at my fingertips! I keep reminding myself that less is more so that I don’t go overboard.

PicFrame

A photo may say a thousand words, but sometimes that’s not enough! From the same designers as Bokehful, ActiveDevelopment, I turned to PicFrame to solve this dilemma. By dropping another 99 cents, I’m able to put multiple images together with a variety of frames and labels that I haven’t tired of yet.

Though I mostly use Instagram to share the final images, I’m finding that to create the effect that I want I sometimes use ALL of the above apps to tweak the original shot before sharing it. So get creative and take a boring pic that anyone could capture and make it your own!

Please let me know what your favourite photo app is as I’m always looking to add to my image arsenal.

Instagram: Not Just for Smartphones Anymore (hispanicbusiness.com)
The First Ever Music Video Filmed Entirely Using Instagram (petapixel.com)
Would You Use Instagram More If It Looked Like This? (appadvice.com)
Instagram Now Available for Android [NEWS] (epicagear.com)
Top Photo Apps Getting Instagram Engagement (prblog.typepad.com)
Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom: ‘I’m not really one for ritual. Life’s more interesting that way.’ (theverge.com)

Video: Lunch Lovers

An unofficial part of my position as Event Coordinator for Fat Dragon Bar-B-Q, Campagnolo and Campagnolo ROMA is being an on call photographer. Truly, there is little I like more than packing up my gear and heading off to snap images, especially if the subject is delicious food that will probably need to be eaten afterward! With nine new lunch specials being debuted at Fat Dragon it was the perfect opportunity to snap some images of the dishes and maybe pull together a video to show off some of the options.

With Youtube becoming the 2nd largest search engine on the web, if you want to be found you need to be in motion pictures. Now, you don’t need wind machines, sound stages or a Steadi-Cam to get the job done. You don’t even need to shoot video! That’s right, you can create a share a slide show of your still photos to give them the reach and dynamism of video.

While I was snapping away with my digital SLR, I supplemented the high quality images with short HD video clips shot with my iPad. This video was made on my iPad with iMovie using still images as well as the video.While it’s not going to be showing up on the silver screen anytime soon, it’s a great engaging way to share what’s going on at Fat Dragon Bar-B-Q in the lunch department!

Do you prefer watching quick videos to clicking through image after image?

Apple releases two iPad Mini vidoes on YouTube (thedroidguy.com)
First iPad Digital Story with Hokusai and iMovie for iPad (speedofcreativity.org)
Double Birthdayish Dinner (josephmallozzi.wordpress.com)

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles